The 2013 Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival’s final events will celebrate beginnings. The New Filmmakers Weekend, which will take place April 20-21, will honor three first-time directors for their big-screen debuts.

Some 65 years after a band of foreign volunteers took to the skies to ensure Israel’s birth and survival, filmmakers are racing to bring their exploits to the screen before the last of the breed passes away.

Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust , a documentary which airs on WHYY April 7 and 8, tells the story of Jewish brothers with Philadelphia connections who saw a way to use their cigar business and political connections to save German and Austrian Jews at the start of World War II.